


Soul Divide

by malevolentmango



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Other, Sense8 AU, Soulmates, Strangers to Lovers, Telepathic Bond, Temporary Character Death, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-06 01:59:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11026230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malevolentmango/pseuds/malevolentmango
Summary: "Watch a flock of birds or a shoal of fish move as one and you glimpse where we came from. Ask how aspen trees feel trauma hundreds of miles apart, or how a mushroom can understand the needs of a forest. You begin to grasp what we are."After witnessing a mysterious death, eight strangers from across the globe find themselves with an inexplicable shared connection...and a target on their backs from a shadow organization known only as Talon.





	1. This Changes Everything

**Author's Note:**

> Introducing: the Overwatch Sense8 AU no one asked for. You don't need to have watched the show to read this, but in general: Sensates are telepathically connected to other people spread across the globe. A group of sensates constitutes a cluster, and members of a cluster can contact each other wherever they are in the world. Before sensates are reborn, an unborn sensate is essentially human. After birthing, the sensate begins to emotionally and mentally link to their cluster. This connection allows sensates in a cluster to share each other’s knowledge, skills, and emotions. 
> 
> Thank you to [Tsoleil](http://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorqui), [Lefty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lefthand), and [Elaine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/vashoth) for betaing and for yelling at me incoherently.
> 
> The art in the beginning is by the wonderfully talented Lefty, and you can find the original post on tumblr [here](http://mccrees-left-arm.tumblr.com/post/161144945093/a-piece-for-an-upcoming-fic-from-malevolentmango).
> 
> The chapter title is from the song This Changes Everything by Dead Sara, which you can listen to [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AfNH8akp0).

 

When Hanzo was young, he often dreamed of a cowboy. He always knew that's what the man was called - a cowboy - although he hadn't yet seen any of those films set in the American West, the ones where gunslingers ride through dirt streets on horseback, laying waste to their enemies and leaving ghost towns in their wake as their silhouette fades into a distant sunset. But still, he knew.

  
  
The dream doesn’t stop as he gets older. It’s always the same: A tall man with a tall hat, a slash of wickedness across his lips and a hand hovering over the revolver on his hip. He never does anything but stare at Hanzo for several long moments, his honey-brown eyes glinting over the curve of his grin, until Hanzo is left thrashing in his blankets from the restlessness. The cowboy waits until he’s teetering on the verge of waking, his only escape from the captivity of those eyes, and only then does he speak. His words echo through Hanzo's mind long after he's gasped awake, sweat making his hair stick to his cheeks and across the back of his neck.

  
  
"I'll be seein' you, darlin'." Always the same words, said with the same surety.

 

It’s almost funny, in the end, that he sees the cowboy first.

~~~

 

Usually when Jesse’s world is turning upside down, it’s because he’s practicing his combat rolls.

 

Usually, when Jesse’s world is turning upside down, Gabe is there to help him flip it back upright again.

 

 _Unusual_ just doesn’t begin to cover this.

 

“Gabe?” he says, but the room he’s just appeared in that most definitely isn’t his bunk at Watchpoint: Grand Mesa may as well have been empty, for all the attention Gabe is paying him. His boss is sprawled across a high-backed chair at the other end of the cavernous room, some kind of abandoned warehouse if Jesse had to guess, surrounded by broken furniture and darkness. The kind of darkness that seeps under his skin like oil and clings to his insides, a cold, desperate fear.

 

Jesse can just barely make him out in the dim slivers of moonlight shining through the high windows, but it’s enough. Enough to see that Gabe’s breath comes in stutters and that his arms, slung over either armrest, are dripping blood steadily onto the floor.

 

He crosses the empty room in what seems like an instant.

 

“Gabe?” he tries again, sure that this close up his boss will be able to hear him. There’s no response aside from the shallow gasping of his breathing. He hasn’t even looked up; his chin remains near-enough pressed to his chest. As Jesse watches, feeling something uncomfortably like panic begin to catch hold of him, Gabe tilts his head to the side, away from Jesse, the way he normally would to show someone they've got his attention.

 

“What the fuck, boss?”

 

Gabe doesn't reply. Just continues listening intently to something that's not there.

 

He's seen Gabe beat up before. Seen him bruised and limping, seen him bleed. He always laughs. As if the very idea of death is hilarious, something that just doesn't happen to the great Gabriel Reyes.

 

Someone gasps, and a voice he doesn't recognize says, “Gabriel…”

 

Jesse spins around, quick as lightning, gun in his hand. It points at nothing. The voices are in his head.

 

As if he needs this night to be even _more_ insane.

 

Behind him, Gabe coughs wetly and whispers, “Jackie...I’m sorry.” His voice is rough, thick with the blood that trickles down his chin. “Take care of them, Jackie.”

 

Jesse dreads turning around, but he gets it over with, letting Peacekeeper fall slack between his fingers. Gabe has somehow gotten worse in the few seconds Jesse spent losing his mind, but he's looking up now. And he’s looking straight at Jesse.

 

“Gabe,” Jesse says one last time, and Gabe finally seems to hear him. His brow furrows, as if Jesse being there makes no sense at all - Jesse is inclined to agree - and then his eyes widen.

 

In all their years together, Jesse has never seen Gabe cry. He sees it now.

 

Gabe’s eyes flicker from Jesse’s face to the spaces on either side of him, as if he's seeing all the people Jesse couldn't find earlier. He has so many questions, but he won't ever get to ask them.

 

And finally, Gabe laughs. It's weak, worn down, and followed by another cough, but it's there: the broken king laughing at death from his borrowed throne.

 

“Sorry kid,” Gabe says, and Jesse has to step closer just to hear him. “Bad luck. But you'll be okay.” He smiles then, and his teeth are stained red. “You always are.”

 

Jesse doesn't remember falling to his knees, but he finds himself there anyway, the sharp stabs of detritus digging into his skin through his thin sleep pants. Gabe doesn't say anything else. It occurs to him too late that he should call for help, but he doesn't think there's any around. He doesn't even know where he is.

 

Gabe breathes shakily, once, twice, and then never again. The sobbing Jesse hears is his own, but also not his own.

 

He feels a gentle hand on his shoulder. And then he feels nothing at all.

 

~~~

 

Sombra is no stranger to disembodied voices.

 

She's not crazy though. They're not hallucinations, or identities conjured up by a troubled mind. Not that she's not troubled either, of course. She's had her fair share of that. It's kind of in the job description when you sign up for a life spent dealing information the same way the Los Muertos thugs she'd once lived around the corner from dealt coke.

  
  
No, the voices don't belong to her. They belong to the network - faint whispers that float through her mind like bits of code across a screen, a program that talks back. The network speaks. Sombra listens. It's the way she's built - or, well, rebuilt. In order to progress, sacrifices have to be made. And really, isn't that what a human brain already is? A fleshy motherboard relaying information to her body through a system of neurons, trawling her cortex for functions and memories like living, breathing software?

  
  
She was already a computer. All she needed was a few upgrades.

  
  
So yeah, Sombra's long since gotten used to having voices in her head that aren't her own. But these particular voices? These ones are different. And it's these voices that are driving her mad.

  
  
"I'm sorry," one of them whispers, tinged with desperation.

  
  
"I did it!" shouts another, raucous and jarring in the silence of Sombra's latest hideout, loud enough to shake the dust from the rafters if it had actually been in the room.

  
  
"I will do better."

  
  
"There's still time to change things."

  
  
"Life is more than an endless series of days."

  
  
"Not fast enough...gotta raise my APM."

  
  
Sombra wants to scream. But that would just add to the noise, and more than anything, she wishes for silence. She closes her eyes, as if cutting off one sensory input might somehow make the other disappear.

  
  
And suddenly, her wish is granted. The voices are cut off in the space between one breath and the next, replaced with...nothing. Not even the ever-present whispers of the network.

  
  
When she opens her eyes, she's no longer alone. Nor is she in her hideout.

  
  
It had been a warm, early summer night in Brooklyn, but here she shivers against the sudden chill, her breath appearing in puffs of mist in front of her face. She's standing in some kind of circular, open-air room, nothing separating her from the sheer drop off to the base of the mountains that surround the whole place but a few intricate stone pillars. She glances over her shoulder and finds that the room is attached to some sort of temple; the light filtering into the dark staircase that leads to where she's standing has an ethereal quality. It feels like if she sets so much as a foot inside, she's liable to taint the whole place like a persistent virus. Which makes her want to skip around in there, just for the hell of it.

  
  
When she looks around again, she's face-to-faceplate with an omnic dressed in golden robes, floating in midair. A holy machine. She’s seen stranger things.

 

"Well," the omnic says, its voice a pleasant, electric-tinged murmur, "this is most certainly a surprise."

 

“What is this? How did I get here?”

 

“I am afraid those are questions I cannot answer, as I would be asking them myself had you not already done so.”

 

Sombra crosses her arms and glares at the omnic. “I'm not in the mood for games.”

 

“That is alright,” he says, resting his thin, mechanical arms on his knees, “as I am not currently in possession of any games.”

 

Sombra’s not entirely sure if she’s being made fun of. And if there's one thing she hates, it's being unsure of something.

 

“At least tell me where I am, omnic, so I can figure out how to _leave.”_

 

The omnic seems to consider her for a moment. Or at least, his faceplate is turned in her direction and tilted slightly to the side. She wonders where he learned to act so human.

 

“My name is Zenyatta, and I am in Nepal, although I do not think that is where you are.”

 

Sombra raises an eyebrow, glancing around pointedly at the mountains and the temple. “Sure seems like I am.”

 

“A part of you is here, yes, that much is apparent. Physically, however, I believe you are somewhere else entirely.”

 

She thinks of her hideout in Brooklyn, and then she's _there,_ as if she'd never left. The rush of city noise sweeps over her, too loud after the utter silence of the temple, and even Zenyatta is startled.

 

She can feel it, she realizes. His surprise, his wonder, as he examines a place he has never been. She's never met anyone so excited by a dingy studio apartment in Brooklyn.

 

“How marvelous,” he says, touching the tip of a metal finger to the wall, delighted that it comes away with a chip of the room's peeling paint attached.

 

“Yeah, it's a real palace,” Sombra says, resisting the urge to slam shut the laptop she'd left open on the wobbly coffee table. That might be a tad too obvious. “So am I just stuck with you now or something?”

 

“Can you not feel them?”

 

“What?”

 

“The others. It seems we are not the only ones who share this connection.” Quietly, he adds, “One of them is grieving.”

 

And as soon as she focuses on it, Sombra realizes the lingering sadness she feels is not her own. The longer she focuses, the more intense it gets, until it feels like the sorrow will drown her along with the person it belongs to. She gasps, clutching her chest as she comes back to herself, and wishes not for the first time that she’d been able to get rid of her human heart along with all the other useless bits.

 

“Why?” she says breathlessly, but her answer comes in the form of an image, a brief flash of color and light, of the man named Gabriel dying on his dusty throne.

 

“An interesting question. Why do we exist at all? Is it an action taken by the Iris that allows us to communicate in this way, or is it simply an accident of evolution?”

 

Sombra stares at him blankly. Zenyatta chuckles.

 

“But perhaps this is not a question we need to answer today. I have never found gathering _more_ data to be a waste of time. Hopefully, you will find the answers that _you_ are seeking as well.”

 

Before Sombra can respond, she finds herself alone in the apartment once again, wondering what the hell just happened and how she can stop it from happening again.

 

~~~

 

Her father hung the letter in a frame on the wall.

 

Hana walks by it every day on her way to the kitchen. She knows the words by heart - “The MEKA Program is excited to offer you a position in our ranks, where your incredible skills will be used to defend your country against the continued omnic threat…” She's not the only one who received this same letter. Miro, Ryujehong, Evermore, they all got one. It's all they've talked about during scrims for the past two weeks.

 

She doesn't need to stop to read the letter. But today, she does.

 

That dream (Was it a dream? She didn't even remember falling asleep), the man who died…Hana’s seen him before, in the holoreels that her father watches. One of the heroes of Overwatch, the ones who ended the Omnic Crisis.

 

The Crisis has never ended here. She doesn't think it ever ended for him, either.

 

Is that what she has to look forward to, in the military? A life spent waiting for that life to end? A slow death in a dirty room, with an actual cowboy holding vigil?

 

Hana really hopes that last part isn't the case.

 

She's startled out of her reverie by a voice she's never heard.

 

“Is that Korean?”

 

Hana turns, wide-eyed, to find a woman standing next to hair. She's tiny, almost smaller than Hana, but she seems to make up for it in the tall spikes of hair that stick out around her face. She's wearing something that looks like a pilot’s uniform, but not in any style Hana could ever identify.

 

She’s also just appeared out of thin air, in the middle of Hana’s hallway.

 

“...Yes?”

 

“Are _you_ Korean then? Wait, wait, am I in _Korea?”_

 

Hana shrugs. “Apparently.”

 

“Oh, _wicked!”_ The woman holds out her hand for Hana to shake. “I'm Lena by the way. Lena Oxton.”

 

“Hana. How did you get into my house?”

 

Lena giggles. “Not a fuckin’ clue! I was in my flat just a second ago…”

 

As if saying so made it reality, Hana finds herself standing in an entirely different room, in front of a large window overlooking a city that definitely isn't Seoul.

 

“Yeah! My flat, see?” Lena says. “You know, I'm not sure I ever left? This is so strange.”

 

“What--where am I?”

 

“London! Nice view, eh? My girlfriend, oh she's brilliant, got us such a great deal on this place--”

 

“How did I get to London?”

 

Lena laughs again. Hana wishes she was in on the joke.  

 

“I don't think you're _actually_ here, are you? Maybe you're just...visiting?”

 

“Lena? Who are you talking to?”

 

They both turn to look at the new voice. A woman with long red hair and freckles is standing in the doorway, staring expectantly at her girlfriend. Her eyes never stray from Lena.

 

Hana waves at her experimentally. When all the woman does is raise an eyebrow, Lena shoots her a look that clearly says “I told you so.”

 

“Just myself, Em! You know how I get.”

 

Hana wonders if this is what people mean when they talk about having an out-of-body experience. Light and heavy all at once, like the weight of gravity on her bones is both too much and not enough.

 

“Did you ever play that retro game _Beyond Two Souls?”_

 

“What?” says Lena.

 

“What?” says Lena’s girlfriend.

 

“Never mind. Do you have any idea how I get back...home?” Hana hasn’t even finished her sentence before she’s back in her old narrow hallway once again, standing in the same exact spot as if she’d never left. Maybe Lena’s right: maybe neither of them ever left at all.

 

Hana stares at the letter on the wall, the outlines of unfamiliar skyscrapers tucked under the glass, an afterimage of a city she’s never truly been to.

 

“You’ll be alright, you know.”

 

She turns to find Lena staring intently at the letter, apparently reading words in a language she doesn’t know.

 

“That man - Gabriel - he wasn’t alright.”

 

Lena frowns, and though they only met about five minutes ago, it occurs to Hana that sadness isn’t an expression that suits her face at all.

 

“I met him, once. Well, I sort of ran into him. I was late for this real important flight test for Slipstream, and I’ve no idea why he was on base, but we rounded the same corner at the same time and--” Lena clapped her hands together. “And I thought he’d be _pissed,_ you know? Since he always looked so...murder-y. But he just gave me a hand up and told me good luck on my test. He had no reason to know who I was, but he did. I think that’s just how he is--was.”

 

Hana sees a flicker of light out of the corner of her eye and hears a whispered, “He deserved better,” but by the time she and Lena turn to look, the light is gone.

 

“Anyway,” Lena continues, “what I’m tryin’ to say is that yeah, it’ll be difficult. Most likely dangerous too. But it’ll be worth it.” She reaches out tentatively, as if not sure she’ll be able to touch Hana at all, but then her hand comes to rest on Hana’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. “You’ll get to _fly.”_

 

Hana stares at the hand on her shoulder for a long moment, and then back up at the letter on the wall. And then a slow grin crosses her face.

 

“I have no idea where you came from or how, but you’re right.” She crosses her arms over her chest and flips her hair back out of her face. And suddenly the letter is just a piece of paper, and the frame is no longer a cage. “All I have to do is win.”

 

~~~

 

The first thing Satya sees is the man in the chair.

 

The first thing she feels is the grief of the man who kneels before him.

 

But the first thing she hears? The first thing she hears is the music.

 

It’s beautiful, if not the kind of music she would normally listen to when choosing for herself. Airy, flowing, with a steady beat that makes her want to dance. Not that she would ever consider doing so in the middle of the Vishkar offices.

 

The music fills her with a sense of contentment, and where before she had been struggling to focus on the task before her, she’s now refreshed and examining the hard light diagram on the table with renewed intensity. She’s nearly worked out a solution for her latest problem, a troublesome arrangement of buildings in the central area that will have to be neutralized, when she realizes that the music is much louder than before.

 

And it’s coming from a man with dreadlocks and a bright green t-shirt who wasn’t there a second ago.

 

Satya leaps to her feet, looking around the room. It’s late in the day, and the few other architechs who remain are seated at desks across the room from hers. None of them seem to be acknowledging the outsider who has magically appeared in their midst, and if this isn’t a clear violation of Vishkar protocols, she’s not sure what is.

 

“You, stranger,” she says, reaching for the photon projector at her hip, “explain yourself! This is a secure area. How did you get in here?”

 

“I’ll be honest, I got no idea,” the stranger replies, in an accent that Satya can’t place. “I was at home a second ago…”

 

The man looks around at her office in confusion, and Satya hesitates. He’s not acting like an intruder would act - in fact, she's not sure she's ever encountered anyone less threatening, or someone who looks so severely out of place.

 

She remembers standing in a dingy room she never sought out, watching the man named Gabriel die. She remembers the beautiful music, and how it had sounded so far away.

 

“Did you see--”

 

“Vishkar.”

 

The way he says it, with a shocking vitriol that cuts through his pleasant music like a jagged knife, makes the hairs on Satya’s arms stand on end. The man is glaring at the adjacent wall, which is adorned with the ornate _V_ of the Vishkar logo. The look in his eyes when he turns back to her actually makes her take a step backwards. She resists the urge to check over her shoulder for help from the other architechs; instead, she tilts her chin upwards defiantly, her lips pressed together in a firm line.

 

“You're one of _them?”_

 

Satya tsks. “I am Vishkar, yes. Although I do not know why you say it with such hostility.”

 

“Oh, I bet you don’t. Too busy buildin’ your _perfect_ world to care who you’re stompin’ out on the way, huh?”

 

“What on earth are you--”

 

“Are you alright, Miss Vaswani?” She’s interrupted by one of the architechs, who has finally decided it’s worth his time to cross the room and help her. The other remains at his desk, staring across the office at her with his head tilted to the side quizzically.

 

Neither of them are looking at the intruder. It’s as if they can’t see him at all.

 

When she looks back to point him out, the man has disappeared. But the echoes of his music still linger, a series of dulcet notes in the back of her mind.

 

~~~

 

When they find him, he is dead. The lifeless king rests on his throne, the chill settling into his bones, the deep red of his wounds congealing until he lapses, stiff and sticky, into a permanent repose. The shadows of his children have long since faded, already a distant memory.

 

When they find him, it is with smiles on their faces. The king hadn’t hidden himself well enough, not this time.

 

When they find him, they send for a hovervan to come and take him away. The king will soon wish that they hadn’t.


	2. Pull Back the Veil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [Tsoleil](http://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorqui) and [Lefty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lefthand) for beta reading. <3
> 
> The chapter title is from the song Soul Divide by Eyeshine, which you can listen to [here](https://youtu.be/P-11RRwRJoI).

Hanzo is no stranger to being hunted. 

 

He knows what he is, and what he’s done. Those kinds of crimes are not forgotten. There’s no shortage of people on his trail: the Shimada gumi, for his desertion; Overwatch, for his long list of assassinations; the relatives and associates of his successful hits, seeking revenge. He will likely be a target until his dying day - or until one of them finally catches up to him. All he can hope for is that those two days are one and the same. Death does not scare him, but a slow death does.

 

He is, however, a little insulted by the sheer incompetence of the man who’s been sent to kill him this time. 

 

Hanzo drops down from the roof of the man’s not-so-secret hideout onto the window ledge, his boots absorbing the shock of the fall and making no sound to announce his presence. The window is haphazardly covered in old newspapers, but Hanzo knows from his stakeouts over the past week that this particular window has gaps in its coverings. Sure enough, if he crouches just so, he has a clear view of the room inside.

 

Moonlight and a small, weak lamp in the center of the room reveal the man who’s been tracking him. Short-cropped gray hair, a well-worn blue and white jacket, a barrel chest and arms like tree trunks - the kind of man who clearly values strength over subtlety. He’s asleep just inside the door, sitting upright against the wall across from the window, a tattered blanket thrown around his shoulders the only protection from the chill of night time in Zurich.

 

Perhaps it had been a mistake after all to stray so close to Overwatch headquarters in his hurry to meet up with his next contact. Clearly, he’d just been asking for trouble. Hanzo doesn’t let it worry him too much.

 

Endless years of being hunted have a habit of turning the prey into the predator.

 

It would be simple enough to kill him now, before he wakes. One clean shot and he would be free to continue on his journey unimpeded. But something makes him hesitate, keeps his hand from straying up to pull an arrow from the quiver strapped to his back. Something about this man…

 

The dim lantern flares brighter for a second, a battery sputtering on its last legs, and illuminates the man’s face more clearly. And with the added light, Hanzo realizes who he is: Jack Morrison. The Strike Commander of Overwatch. Hanzo’s seen his face enough times in holovids, standing tall in the center of a screaming crowd of reporters, being called to answer for Overwatch’s methods.

 

He’s got the look of a man several years older than he could possibly be, a shadow of the fearless leader Hanzo remembers from the old holovids about the Crisis. The years have been no kinder to him than they have to Hanzo, it seems. Although he has a feeling that on-the-job stress has little to do with why he’s hiding out in an abandoned building in Zurich when he likely has a bed worthy of a Strike Commander across town.

 

That’s one of the things Hanzo misses most: having a comfortable bed to sleep in every night. He’s spent far too many nights camped out like Morrison.

 

And Hanzo is too curious for his own good. Hopefully Morrison won’t mind being woken up from something as uncomfortable as that wall no doubt is.

 

He pulls a sonic arrow from his quiver and holds it between his teeth before pressing himself back against the side of the building. He takes a steadying breath. Then he smashes open the glass with his elbow in one swift movement and readies his bow with the next, sending the arrow flying through the glass directly into the bulb of the lantern, plunging the room into darkness just as the sound of glass breaking rouses Morrison from his sleep. Hanzo breaks open the rest of the window, just enough for him to climb through without getting cut. His bow is trained on Morrison in seconds. Hanzo can see the outline of him in the dark, fumbling with something in front of his face. There’s a flash of red, and then a sliver of light illuminates Morrison’s eyes - a visor. 

 

It all happens in seconds, and Morrison is reaching for the pulse rifle at his side when Hanzo finally speaks.

 

“I promise you will not be able to move faster than my arrow. Leave your gun where it is.”

 

Morrison freezes, his visor turning in Hanzo’s direction. Apparently, Hanzo isn’t the only one who can see in the dark.

 

“Hanzo Shimada,” Morrison says, his voice rough with sleep and age. He gestures to the fraying patch on the shoulder of Hanzo’s jacket. “Or do you prefer to be called ‘The Dragon?’”

 

“That depends on if you intend to pay me. However, since you have been stalking me for the past week, I will assume that is not the case.”

 

Morrison snorts. “Don’t take it personally, Shimada. You just happened to be the closest one.”

 

Hanzo lets his bow down slowly, keeping it at the ready in case Morrison decides to make a move towards his rifle. 

 

“The closest one?”

 

“Believe me, if I had any other choice here, I’d be bringing you into Overwatch HQ right now.” Morrison pauses, stares him down, and Hanzo resists the urge to interject with, “You could  _ try.” _ “But I’m not here for that. I...have a promise to keep.”

 

Hanzo can just barely see the glinting of Morrison’s eyes through the light of his red-tinted visor, but for a moment the man seems incredibly sad. There’s no hint of that sadness in the steel of his voice when he continues, “You need to help Jesse McCree.”

 

“...Who?”

 

Morrison sighs heavily. “Listen, you think you could hold off on shooting me if I grab a light out of my bag? Seeing as you destroyed my other one.”

 

Hanzo considers him for a moment. Nothing about this exchange is going as he expected it would, and if this is all a plot to get him to let his guard down, it’s an incredibly convoluted one. And while the sonic arrow doesn’t leave him totally in the dark, it’s clear that Morrison’s visor gives him an advantage.

 

“Slowly,” Hanzo says, raising his bow just slightly.

 

Morrison does as instructed, reaching over his pulse rifle into an old military-style duffel bag and retrieving another, smaller lantern. He flicks it on and sets it on his other side. Now that he can see Morrison up close, it becomes even more apparent how worn down he actually looks.

 

“Better,” Morrison says, although he doesn't turn his visor off. He takes a long look at Hanzo in the light, perhaps sizing him up. Then he lets out a humorless chuckle. “He would’ve liked you. Would've laughed in my face for all the times I told him to track you down.”

 

Hanzo remembers the vision of the man in the chair, laughing at his own demise, and before he can even begin to understand why, he says, “Gabriel.”

 

Morrison jumps as if Hanzo had slapped him, and he gets that same look on his face that Hanzo had glimpsed earlier. It's not sadness, he realizes in the light. It's something much more raw, as if the man before him is an open, bleeding wound with no hope of a suture. 

 

“You saw him,” Morrison says, charging through his obvious pain with all the tenacity of a cornered animal. “Maybe you've seen some of the others already too. It works differently for everyone.”

 

“The others,” Hanzo says, neither confirmation nor denial. 

 

“You're a sensate. One of eight in your cluster, and one of god knows how many in the world. I'm one. Gabe...was one.”

 

And if for no other reason, Hanzo is glad to have broken open Morrison's window on the wrong side of midnight just to have an _explanation_ for all the voices in his head. Even if it's one he doesn't entirely understand. 

 

“I have never heard of sensates.”

 

“Well, that's not surprising. Most people haven't, until it happens to them.”

 

“And that man - Gabriel. Why did I…”

 

“He sired you.” At Hanzo’s blank look, Morrison sighs. “Look, I'm no expert on all the science behind it. All I know is that when we're reborn, we're connected. Related. Not by blood, but by something else. Gabe likes to...he used to say we were what people meant when they talked about soulmates.” Morrison smiles weakly, not looking at Hanzo at all. Lost in some memory. “But then, he always was a romantic.”

 

“So this person you want me to help. Jesse McCree.” The name leaves him feeling parched, like he's standing in a desert instead of an old building in Zurich, and he feels suddenly too hot in his jacket. “You're saying he's in my…cluster.”

 

Hanzo thinks that Morrison responds, but he doesn't hear it. He's too distracted by the man who's suddenly appeared in the far corner of the room, looking more out of place in it than either Hanzo or Morrison could ever manage. 

 

Even without the telltale curve of his hat, Hanzo would have recognized the man immediately: the cowboy from his dreams, although his beard is thicker and his eyes more haunted. The cowboy who knelt on a dirty floor in front of a dying man. The kind of man who would, more than likely, have a name like Jesse McCree.

 

As if in confirmation, the first words out of his mouth are, “I don't need no help. And if I did, I definitely wouldn't need it from a fella like  _ you,  _ Shimada.”

 

Hanzo wonders if he will ever not be preceded by his reputation. Unlikely. 

 

“Is he here?”

 

Hanzo turns back to Morrison, then glances between the two of them. He realizes that this must be part of the connection Morrison talked about, that Jesse likely isn't here at all. He feels another surge of heat, dry and blazing, like a spray of sand across his face. Wherever Jesse is, it's far away from here. 

 

Hanzo nods just as Jesse says, “And you can tell Morrison that if he wanted to help me, he coulda stepped up when he had the chance. Not that I ever expected the UN’s  _ lapdog _ to do the right thing anyway.”

 

“He says you had your chance to help him.”

 

Morrison scoffs. “He's gonna run headlong into trouble, just like he always does.” Jesse steps closer to Morrison, his mouth opening as if he's about to start yelling, before remembering that Morrison can't hear him. He stalks around the small room in an agitated circle instead, muttering under his breath, giving Hanzo a wide berth as if he refuses to get too close to him. “That's why you need to help him. Be his eyes and ears, his backup. What he's doing right now, that's called visiting, and it works both ways.”

 

Morrison stares at him expectantly, then adds, “He's not gonna give up on his mission for vengeance, but you've got the right set of skills to help him survive it, if nothing else.”

 

Hanzo barely hears the end of his sentence, drowned out as it is by more of Jesse's ranting. He ignores the words - references to old arguments he was never part of - and instead studies the man himself. Fierce, passionate in his anger and grief, and Hanzo wonders if he will ever see that grin from his dreams in person, or if that's a privilege he should never expect. Wonders, not for the first time, what Gabriel Reyes must have done to gain such devotion from him, the kind of devotion that could make a man fall to his knees like a loyal subject before his king. Wonders at the kind of influence a man like that must have had over Morrison, who prefers to mourn his loss in a dingy apartment with newspaper-covered windows than in the comfort of his own bed. 

 

Hanzo has only felt so out of step once before in his life. Death has a funny way of tearing you out of the world as you know it and leaving you floating through it instead, clinging to gravity like a lifeline. 

 

He is still floating. It makes it that much easier to leave this particular hunt behind. 

 

“I am no one's helper,” Hanzo says, cutting through Jesse's tirade. He's facing Morrison but he's speaking to them both, so that when he turns to slip out through the broken window, there is no question that he's leaving both commander and cowboy behind. 

 

~~~

 

It just figures that when Lúcio finally emerges from an hours-long jam session thinking only about how hungry he is, he ends up at someone else's dinner instead of his own. 

 

Lena (he thinks that’s her name) hasn’t noticed him yet, standing in the back corner of the room where he’s suddenly appeared, but he can’t really blame her. She’s a bit preoccupied with leaning over a table making out with another girl he doesn’t know, although he has a vague impression of familiarity towards her that he can’t explain.

 

This strange connection just gets even stranger with every passing day.

 

The other woman laughs suddenly, breaking their kiss, and gives Lena a light shove back to her side of the table.

 

“If you don’t sit down, you’re going to catch fire,” she says, pulling one of the tea lights in the center of the table closer to her side, just in case. “Again.”

 

“Worth it,” Lena says with a wide grin, flopping back into her chair. She picks up her fork, giggling. “Why Emily, was it getting too  _ hot _ for you?”

 

Emily smiles, and the way she looks at Lena reminds Lúcio so much of the way his mother looks at his father: as if she holds within her an endless well of admiration, and it’s constantly on the verge of overflowing. It makes him feel even worse for intruding, although he’s just as unsure about how to leave as he is about how he got here.

 

She responds to Lena’s question, her tone teasing, but it’s at that moment that Lena notices him. She startles, looking confused, before realizing who he must be. Lúcio waves and Lena waves back, smiling, and then giggles nervously when Emily stops talking to give her a questioning look.

 

“D’you remember when I told you the other day that I’d been to Korea and back?” Lena says by way of explanation.

 

“I thought you were just joking.”

 

“See, I know it  _ sounds _ like it should be a joke, but it really wasn’t.” Lena takes a deep breath, and Lúcio gets a flash of emotions that aren’t his own - a strange mixture of nervousness and surety. “You know how my mum’s always on about empathic links and ESP and all that other stuff I always thought was a load of bollocks? Well it turns out...it seems like it isn’t.”

 

Emily doesn’t respond immediately, and when Lúcio takes a few steps closer so that he can see her face, she seems quizzical. Not disbelieving, just confused. And totally on board for whatever crazy thing her girlfriend is about to throw at her.

 

Lúcio finds himself incredibly happy for Lena, to have someone like that on her side. It’s the kind of loyalty he wants to inspire in people, to make them see that working together is the only way to keep moving forward. He hopes he can find more people like them in his part of the world.

 

Lena launches into an explanation of the events of the past week - the man who died, the visits from strangers, the discovery that they’re something called sensates - long-winded and rambling, doubling back to include bits of the story she forgot. Emily just listens intently, occasionally taking a bite of the dinner that Lena has long since forgotten about. 

 

“And one of them, his name is Lúcio,” Lena gestures in his direction with a smile, “he's here now. Not sure why…”

 

Lúcio just shrugs. “Tell Emily I'm sorry for interrupting your dinner?”

 

Before Lena can, Emily says, “That's a lot to take in. And I'm not saying I don't believe you, love.” She glances around the room; to her, they must be completely alone. “It's just, well...do you have any way of proving it?”

 

There's a moment's pause, in which Lena stares at Lúcio with a slight frown and Lúcio has nothing to offer but another helpless shrug. Then Lena’s up and moving, dashing out of the room and back again just as quickly. She holds up what she retrieved - her phone - and says, “Okay, so there's no way a guy in Brazil is gonna have your phone number, right?” She taps a few times, and then sets the phone on the table where they can all see it. The screen displays a number with “Em <3” across the top. “So if Lúcio…”

 

“Oh, yeah! Yeah I getcha,” Lúcio says, already reaching into his pocket. 

 

Emily waits patiently, but she still jumps slightly when her phone rings. She presses the answer button hesitantly and holds it up to her ear. 

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hey Emily, this is Lúcio” he says, watching her eyes widen. He can hear the tiny echo of his own voice coming from her phone. “I'm really sorry for turning up during your dinner like this. I'm still not sure how this whole thing works.”

 

Emily laughs, and if it's a little bit hysterical, neither Lena nor Lúcio comment on it. 

 

“That's alright. Neither am I,” she says, sitting back in her chair and running a nervous hand through her hair. She looks around the room again, this time searchingly, as if now that she can hear his voice she’ll be able to see him too. 

 

“I'm standing to your right, near the middle of the table,” he says. Emily turns in that direction, her eyes focused about five inches above his head. He doesn't correct her. “That chicken looks delicious, by the way. What's the occasion?”

 

Emily shakes her head, sending a fond glance in Lena’s direction. “We're celebrating Lena's acceptance into the Slipstream program. She's got endless adventures going on, apparently.”

 

“Well I only chose some of them!” Lena giggles and winks at Lúcio. 

 

“I'll let you get back to it then,” he says. He thinks if he focuses hard enough, he can just about smell his own dinner waiting for him back home. “See you around! Or, you know…”

 

“Not quite.” Emily laughs. “Bye, Lúcio.”

 

As Lúcio leaves, he catches one last glimpse of them: Emily coming around the table to wrap her arms around Lena in a tight hug. Lúcio didn't know a person could smile that wide, but he's happy that Lena has a reason to.

 

~~~

 

Satya would greatly appreciate it if she could stop being interrupted at work by seemingly random musical interludes.

 

It’s quieter this time, at least. Some distant thumping rhythm in the background, intermixed with the cries of seagulls. It makes her think of the beach scenes in the films she watches. She’s never had time to visit the beach in real life. Perhaps someday she will.

 

The music breaks her concentration, and since she’s not sure how to make it stop, she goes in search of the source instead. 

 

Knowing what to look for makes the jump between places far less surprising than the first time she did it. Satya finds herself in a dark, spacious room illuminated by countless glowing purple servers and consoles. One wall is nothing but a glittering web of faces and symbols, connected by purple lines that criss-cross between them in ways Satya would need hours to decipher. Another wall is devoted to an expansive array of monitors, in front of which sits a woman she’s never met.

 

But she knows her name is Sombra. She’s heard it whispered through the chain of voices that connects her to the others. The sensates, as she’d heard discussed with the man named Hanzo earlier in the day. It's hard to place herself in this new category of people, to be forced to experience things in a way she isn’t used to.

 

Sombra seems to realize that she's no longer alone, and she swings around in her chair to squint at Satya, who stands in the darkest part of the room. She sighs heavily. 

 

“What the hell’s the point of having secret hideouts if people can just show up whenever they want?” she says, slumping further back into her chair. “Well, who are you then?”

 

Satya stands up a little straighter under the scrutiny. “My name is Satya Vaswani.”

 

Sombra smirks. “Piece of advice, my dear. Never give your full name to a hacker.”

 

“A hacker?”

 

Satya frowns as Sombra gestures to the room around her, as if it should be obvious. She takes a closer look at the wall of connections, and her eyes widen. 

 

“Why is the Vishkar logo there?”

 

Sombra follows her gaze, clearly taking far too much joy in swiveling around, before focusing on Satya again. Sombra’s eyes trail up and down her body in a way that makes Satya feel like she's completely on display, as if there aren't any secrets that Satya could possibly hide from her. 

 

Finally, after a stretch of silence that borders on uncomfortable, Sombra just shrugs. “Everything's connected,  _ Satya.  _ Knowing how is what I do.” She tilts her head to the side and then stands up, moving closer to Satya, who watches her warily. “Are you one of them? You've got that--” Sombra waves her hand around in a gesture that makes no sense to Satya.  _ “Look.” _

 

Satya purses her lips, wondering why people keep reacting so strangely whenever it comes to her work. The memory of her first meeting with Lúcio is still fresh in her mind. “I am Vishkar, yes.”

 

Sombra grins in a truly unsettling way, even as she holds her hands up in front of her, a mockery of surrender. “Hey, no need to look at me like that. I'm just curious.” She leans against a stack of what looks to be servers, glowing purple like everything else, her eyes traveling in a lazy circuit up and down Satya’s body. She hasn't stopped grinning. “You're so much more  _ interesting _ than the last one who visited me.”

 

“And you?” Satya asks, trying to divert that intense concentration away from herself in anyway that she can. “Who do you work for?”

 

There’s a pause, and then Sombra says matter-of-factly, “No one but myself, beautiful. Unless the price is right.”

 

Satya watches the letters and numbers that flicker across the screens behind her, occasionally interrupted by an intricately designed three-dimensional skull icon. Her hands move of their own accord, pulling lines of hard-light into existence from her gauntlet and twisting them into shape with quick, precise movements of her fingers, until she's holding a replica of the skull. 

 

She looks up to find Sombra watching her with wide eyes. But before Satya has time to wonder why, the expression is gone, replaced with a smirk. It's less intimidating than the last one, and so Satya doesn't mind it being directed at her this time. 

 

“Huh,” Sombra says, just as Satya realizes how much time she's been spending with this stranger when she should be working. “Look at that. I'm thinking someone like you is entirely wasted on Vishkar.”

 

In a moment, the room is gone, replaced by the familiar surroundings of her work station in the Vishkar offices. She's still holding the hard-light skull; incomplete, needing one last step to bring it into reality. It would be easier for Satya to let it fade, a mock-up of a design that doesn't belong in her world, an excess of energy that could be better spent elsewhere.

 

Without entirely understanding why, she tugs it into being with one final twirl of her fingers. It's a barely noticeable weight in the palm of her hand, and she places it on her desk next to her monitor. It grins up at her, watching her with its wide, hollow eyes.

 

It's the only personal item Satya has ever put on her desk.

 

~~~

 

Zenyatta feels the pulse of turmoil, and he follows it. 

 

It brings him to a dimly lit motel room, with a bed that looks like it's seen better days and carpet to match. There's a patch of darker-colored wood in a perfect square on the nightstand where a lamp used to be. It's on the desk now, shining like a spotlight on the room's largest wall, which is devoted to a hastily arranged mass of taped-up papers - and who has a use for paper these days, he wonders - beneath which sits a man, staring intensely at a data pad. 

 

He also looks like he has seen better days. 

 

Zenyatta lets out a concerned hum, and the man whips around in his seat, a revolver in his hand in an instant. There are deep purple bags under his eyes and three empty bottles of whiskey lined up against the wall. 

 

When he realizes who Zenyatta is, he laughs humorlessly and lowers his gun. 

 

“Good way to get shot,” he says, sliding the weapon back into its holster. His clothes are severely rumpled, as if he's been sleeping in them. “Sneakin’ up on people like that.”

 

“My apologies. I did not intend to sneak.” Zenyatta hovers closer to the wall, although he keeps his gaze politely averted from the details of the pages there. “You are Jesse McCree.”

 

Jesse nods, once. “And you're the monk. Zenyatta. I'd offer you a drink, but…” He gestures between Zenyatta and the empty bottles. “Not much point in that I s’pose.”

 

“I appreciate the offer nonetheless.”

 

“So what brings you here? Or is this one of those random visits everyone seems to be getting?”

 

Zenyatta observes him for a moment. Jesse does not seem to appreciate his silence; he fidgets with the data pad, first turning the screen off and then lighting it up again.

 

Finally, he says, “I felt distress through the bond we all share, and it led me to you.”

 

Jesse snorts. “Well I ain't no damsel, if that's what you're lookin’ for.” He squints in Zenyatta’s direction. “Don't go worryin’ ‘bout me. No reason for that kinda nonsense.”

 

“Concern is a natural reaction to the sense of danger experienced by others. And I do believe the risk of significant bodily harm is a cause for such concern.”

 

Jesse scoffs. “I ain't gettin’ hurt. I'm gettin’ even.”

 

Zenyatta folds his arms across his knees and floats closer to him. “Revenge is not justice, my friend. And it takes away far more than it gives in return.”

 

“Yeah, and what the hell do you know about it anyway?” Jesse stumbles out of his chair, putting as much distance between the two of them in the small room as he can. He still manages to look uncomfortably cornered. “We ain’t been ‘friends’ for but a week. Whatever’s goin’ on in my head with y’all ain’t got nothin’ to do with this unfinished business I gotta attend to.”

 

Zenyatta remains silent, thinking of how best to respond. Jesse’s fingers twitch towards his gun, almost like a reflex. Or perhaps he is reconsidering his decision not to shoot Zenyatta after all.

 

It’s clear that he’s not going to be able to talk Jesse out of whatever mission he’s set for himself - every inch of him speaks to recklessness, to a wild desire for revenge on behalf of the man they all saw die. Zenyatta doesn’t know what his plan is, but he’s fairly certain it’s the kind that cannot be completed alone. 

 

“It is strange. You remind me of someone else whom I have only known for a short amount of time.” Zenyatta tilts his head to the side and wonders at the strange workings of the Iris. “I will give you the same advice I gave him: If you find the courage to ask for help, you may be surprised at how readily you receive it.”

 

Jesse laughs, slumping against the far wall in a way that’s probably meant to be casual but actually seems to be the only thing capable of keeping him upright. “Is that a monk’s way of tellin’ someone to stop bein’ a goddamn idiot?”

 

Zenyatta lets out a metallic laugh of his own. “Indeed it is.”

  
“Yeah well. No promises, partner.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to freak out about Overwatch and/or Sense8 with me, you can find me on tumblr [here](http://malevolentmango.tumblr.com).


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